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| Friedrichstrasse | |
 View north towardsFriedrichstraße station | |
 Interactive map of Friedrichstraße | |
| Former names | |
|---|---|
| Namesake | Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg |
| Type | Shopping street |
| Length | 3,300 m (10,800 ft)[2] |
| Location | Berlin, Germany |
| Quarter | Mitte,Kreuzberg |
| Nearest metro station | |
| Coordinates | 52°31′00″N13°23′21″E / 52.516666666667°N 13.389166666667°E /52.516666666667; 13.389166666667 |
| North end |
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| Major junctions | |
| South end | Mehringplatz |
| Construction | |
| Inauguration |
|
Friedrichstraße, orFriedrichstrasse (seeß;[3]German pronunciation:[ˈfʁiːdʁɪçˌʃtʁaːsə]ⓘ) (lit.Frederick Street), is a major culture and shopping street in centralBerlin, forming the core of theFriedrichstadt neighborhood and giving the name toBerlin Friedrichstraße station. It runs from the northern part of the oldMitte district (north of which it is called Chausseestraße) to theHallesches Tor in the district ofKreuzberg.
This downtown area is known for its expensive real estate market and the campus of theHertie School of Governance. Due to its north-southerly direction, it forms important junctions with the east-western axes, most notably withLeipziger Straße andUnter den Linden. TheU6U-Bahn line runs underneath. During theCold War it was bisected by theBerlin Wall and was the location ofCheckpoint Charlie.
As central Berlin's traditional shopping street, Friedrichstraße is three blocks east of the parallelWilhelmstraße, the historic heart of the old government quarter (German:Regierungsviertel) until 1945.
Friedrichstraße was badly damaged duringWorld War II and only partly rebuilt during the division of Berlin. The section in West Berlin was partly rebuilt as a residential street; in the late 1960s, the remains of the formerBelle-Alliance-Platz at the end of the Friedrichstraße, renamedMehringplatz, were completely demolished and replaced with a concrete housing and office development designed byHans Scharoun. Despite its central location, this area remains relatively poor.
In the East Berlin section, plans were put into place to widen the street to four lanes as was done to theLeipziger Straße; theHotel Unter den Linden (demolished 2006) and the originalLindencorso (demolished 1991) were the only structures built during this time with the wider profile of the street in mind. TheGrand Hotel Berlin, East Germany's top 5-star hotel, was built across from the Hotel Unter den Linden in 1987. Further plans were drawn up for a rebuilding of the street, and construction was well underway at the time ofGerman reunification in 1990, when the East GermanPlattenbau-based construction was stopped and subsequently demolished; only a few buildings that were already complete and occupied were spared. The completed Berlin Casino building located at the corner of Leipziger Straße was torn down in 1994.
Friedrichstraße was rebuilt in the 1990s, and at the time it was the city's largest construction project; work continues north of Friedrichstraße station. From 1992 until 1996, construction works took place for a six-building, $800 million, multi-use complex developed byTishman Speyer, among others.[4] The buildings have a city-imposed height limit of about 100 feet. A number of well-known architects contributed to the plans, includingJean Nouvel, who designed theGaleries Lafayette department store (Quartier 207);Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, who plannedQuartier 206; andOswald Mathias Ungers, who createdQuartier 205.[4]Philip Johnson created parts of the American Business Center at Checkpoint Charlie, a $751 million five-building complex of offices, shops and apartments developed byRonald Lauder andCentral European Media Enterprises. The redevelopment received mixed reviews.
During theCold War and division of Berlin, theFriedrichstraße underground station, despite being located inEast Berlin, was utilized by two intersectingWest BerlinS-Bahn lines and theWest Berlin subway lineU6. The station served as a transfer point for these lines, and trains stopped there, although all other stations on these lines in East Berlin were sealed-offghost stations (Geisterbahnhof), where trains passed through under guard without stopping. At Friedrichstraße station, West Berlin passengers could transfer from one platform to another but could not leave the station without the appropriate papers. The section of the station open to West Berlin lines was heavily guarded and was sealed off from the smaller part of it serving as a terminus of the East Berlin S-Bahn and as a station for long-distance trains.
In 2020, a section of Friedrichstraße was closed off for motorized traffic during a five-month trial period with the intent to revitalize urban space.[5]
Steht der Buchstabe ß nicht zur Verfügung, so schreibt man ss. [If the letter ß is unavailable, then one writes ss.]
